Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does Anyone know if shell color is genetic or based on incubation temperatures? Has anyone tried breeding for certain shell colors?

Here is a picture of my "Yellow Group". Each Tortoise is from a different breeder. YES, THEY ARE ALL REDFOOTS!

I was asking myself that question lately, as more and more pictures of very light yellow or very orange scute redfoots are showing up on this forum as well as in the 'Classified'.
I have a now 14 months old redfoot, that had quite orange scutes as a hatchling. Its mother regularly produces 'orange' to 'very orange' hatchlings, but neither the mother nor the father have orange scutes themselves. If the scute colour was genetically controlled in this pair, then the 'orange scute' trait would be determined by a recessive gene.
It will be interesting to see, how these hatchlings with 'special' scute colours develop. Does anybody here have an adult with very yellow or orange areole?
In my 'orange' hatchling the orange has stayed about the same for now, but the overall appearance is not that orange any more, because the black growth rings around the areole are becoming wider and wider.
So maybe it is just the appearance, that changes over the time, as the areole only make a small part of the carapace of an adult. Or maybe the areole colour will change?
Two breeders I know told me, that the ivory coloring in Cherryheads often is very apparent for a while, but eventually becomes less apparent. Maybe it is the same with areole as well?
It would be interesting to get input from people who own adults or subadults with 'special' areole colour!

Gaby